1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus that prints printing data including images, and a control method for the printing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-218758 discusses a first storage unit that stores page description language (PDL) specification data, and a development process generating unit that generates a plurality of development processes for developing PDL specification data stored in the first storage unit into image data. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-218758 further discusses a second storage unit that stores the image data developed by the generated development processes, and a transfer unit that transfers the image data stored in the second storage unit to corresponding image forming units. The Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-218758 further discusses a configuration of executing in parallel the development processes generated by the development process generating unit.
In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-24860, a plurality of inputted print jobs are divided in page units, and execution units for compressed data generation processing and for output processing are assigned, in units of divided pages, from multiple data compression generating units and multiple output units. This assigning is conducted on the basis of data accumulation information of spool units and information relating to data processing conditions of the compressed data generating units and the output units. The compressed data generating units and the output units for executing the processing of the pages are determined according to this assigning, and a configuration is described in which data compression, development, and output processes are executed by the determined compressed data generating units and output units so that a printing process is executed on the basis of a uniform load distribution.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-200814 discusses the following configuration. Placement data is inputted for deciding the placement of pages when combining and printing a plurality of pages of printing data on one printing page, and a portion of page data to be printed as a single page is extracted from the printing data according to the inputted placement data and saved. A printing control device that outputs the printing data generated from the saved page data includes a specification unit. The specification unit specifies, with respect to the placement data, the placement of additional printing data pages in combination with the placement data on one page when the printed result on a printing page is bound. The printing control device further includes a generating unit that generates printing data in which data of a plurality of page data is placed according to the placement data on the one page when bound.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-33744 discusses a printing control method that stores printing commands over multiple pages in a command buffer and carries out a rendering procedure and a printing procedure of the pages with multiple processors according to the printing commands. In this method, when image procedures of different pages are successively assigned to different processors, a string of printing commands over the multiple pages in the command buffer are read, and blank rendering is executed to carry out the setting of rendering attribute parameters of each page without carrying out actual rendering. In this method, the actual rendering by the processors is then rendered on the basis of the printing command string according to the set rendering attribute parameters on each page in which the blank rendering is finished.